Page 166 of Scars Beneath a Serpent’s Scales

Roremar sighed, fist clenching. “They are now, but they’re all in Myrella’s class as first years.”

“All their ties showed up at once?”

“No, they’ve shown up over the past few years. Vivienne was last—just a few months ago.” He gestured to Hyllara’s sigil, the blooming tree the darkest, most recent ink. “But they’d been at a small school across the isle until I started working on this case.” He swallowed the knot in his throat.

“You didn’t want them at the Academy because of your uncle,” Emmeline guessed.

Roremar nodded. “And we couldn’t afford it.”

Emmeline’s fingers drifted to the final sigil. The veiled statue with roses sprouting in her wake. “Anphrosia?” she barely whispered, fear darkening her tone.

“My sister on the continent. She’s okay. She won’t be returning to Lyra anytime soon.”

“Good.” Emmeline’s eyes paused on the winged mask of Serchus. “When I read earlier tonight, Metrina told me something that I think pointed to Serchus. Something about protect the greed of illusions and heralds of secret currency.”

“What in the Angel’s fuck could that mean?” Roremar asked, trying to put together the vague hints. “Is she saying this is all connected to Serchus instead of Anphrosia?”

“I don’t know.” Emmeline shook her head. “They both have a history with cult worship. Perhaps we were right about that.”

“Maybe…” Roremar dragged out the word, studying the winged mask. That line of thought didn’t feel complete. “When is the Fate of Prophecy and Demise ever helpful?”

“True,” Emmeline agreed with a small smile, covering the sigil.

“We’ll know for sure soon, hopefully,” Roremar said.

Emmeline’s fingers curled around his arm as if begging him to continue with the tattoos, dragging to the letters scrawled on his ribs.

“Those are for my father. The date he died.” Letters instead of numbers, an ancient way of marking dates that many on the Constellation Isles still honored. To Roremar, it held more weight when immortalized that way. His throat was thick, but he pushed through it, pointing to the eight stars mapped below and the lines connecting them. “The constellation beneath it was how he always pictured our family. And the words on the other side are the name of his favorite boat he ever owned. REIGNARA ASTELLA.”

The bold, capital letters spelled the memory down his left obliques. His father said the name was a language lost to the warriors. Never forget those who came before us, he’d told Roremar on more than one occasion.

That tattoo was his favorite. Every time he looked at it, he thought of each day out on the water with his dad. Especially the ones they were alone. When he learned his greatest life lessons, shared his deepest fears. When they spent the evening before that last assignment watching the sunset on the ocean, and an odd sense of finality had settled in the air as his father reminded him to always remember the people and places that made him feel alive.

He held in a breath as Emmeline traced the letters slowly, like every touch was imprinting them in her memory. That message was certainly one he’d let himself forget over recent years, without realizing it. He brushed aside the remorse now, focusing on her.

Emmeline looked up at him, her eyes dropping to his mouth. Her tongue wet her bottom lip. Fuck, he didn’t have the control for this.

“No kissing, Huntress. Right?” The words were rough, his hand fisting against her.

“Right,” Emmeline breathed, and she tore her eyes away.

She continued her exploration, fingers traveling to the piece that wrapped his left shoulder.

“What’s this?” she asked softly.

“The wing…” He couldn’t help his rumble of nostalgic laughter. “Honestly, Des was just bored with that one. He did it ages ago—we were barely eighteen. He wanted practice for something more artistic. I’d had a few drinks and told him to draw whatever he wanted.” He looked at the fiery, feathered wings that overlapped, unsure where one ended and another began. They stretched toward the sigils of his siblings. “It’s abstract, according to him. Somewhere between an Angel and a phoenix.” He shrugged. “I like it. And the memory associated with it.”

Something flashed through Emmeline’s eyes. Her teeth sank into her lip.

“You’re lucky to have a friend like him. All the memories.”

Her loneliness aside, the concession bled through him. Another reminder that she would be going to Valyn soon, would be only memories. A knot formed in his throat, but he swallowed past it and wrapped his arm tighter around her.

“I am, but he’s a stubborn ass at times.” He didn’t add that he wasn’t sure how his friend would feel if he saw them now, but Roremar was done pretending this thing between him and Emmeline wasn’t bigger than them.

“Keep going,” he urged, turning so she could study the tattoo on his back.

The largest one—in some ways the most personal. Her eyes draping over it were intimate, setting his flesh aflame.